


Just Visiting

by buttless



Series: Visits to Ritsu [1]
Category: Loveless
Genre: Canon - Manga, Gen, Non-sexual, Septimal Moon | Seven Moons, non-romantic, post-attack pre-seimei taking soubi back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 15:28:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5380352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttless/pseuds/buttless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soubi shows up unexpectedly for a visit to Ritsu. It's been a long time since he has last been "home" on his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Visiting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DailyDaves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DailyDaves/gifts).



“Agatsuma Soubi,” Soubi plainly stated his name while looking past the face of the female receptionist in front of him. He was a bit irritated, coming in the front door of Septimal Moons was not a normal experience for him. When he had taken Ritsuka last, he acted like he knew how things worked but he had never actually came in through the onsen before. The woman typed a bit of information into her computer. She was most assuredly checking his level of security clearance. She asked for his ID and if he was expected.

“No,” he replied. She returned a look of weary scorn. 

“I’m sure Ritsu will take me,” Soubi snapped.

He shuffled past the door she held open for him and mumbled an inaudible thank you. Soubi looked down the hallway in front of him, dimly lit with the cold light of fluorescents. This, this, was the closest thing he had to a home. He didn’t consider it one at all. His memories of his parent’s home were non-existent, but this could not be called a childhood home. Soubi didn’t have much of a childhood after all.

“Sensei,” Soubi whispered into the empty hall. The bitter title on his tongue drew back inescapable memories to the forefront of his mind. In his head he navigated the building’s winding halls to Ritsu’s rooms. He stood still for a long moment before slowly lifting his feet to follow that path.

He knocked at the door, leaving his hesitation behind now that he was this far. “Ritsu? …Ritsu?” He had passed people on the way down, but paid them no mind, as though they were ghosts and he was merely walking through a memory of a place. Soubi felt like he was seventeen again, like the past four years were a bad dream he had just woken up from. No answer came at the door, Soubi tried the knob and finding it loose he let himself in. An unnatural feeling, he had never let himself into these rooms uninvited before. “Ritsu?” The place was dark. Soubi feared his teacher was asleep. It was getting late now, it was late when he had left his apartment. What should he do now if he was to find Ritsu asleep? As it was, he was in Ritsu’s living room, as always it looked barely lived in. The door to the bedroom was cracked open. Soubi padded across the floor to peer in. Empty. He let his held breath out with relief. “Fuck.”

Not a moment later, Ritsu walked in the main door, dressed shabbily, laptop under his arm, and his hand groping around for a telltale surface. Ritsu, blind, Soubi hadn’t encountered it before. He purposely avoided Ritsu the day Seimei blinded him. Soubi was too conflicted, he was torn between too many masters as it was. Ritsu would only have made things harder then. 

“Who the fuck is in my room? Nagisa if that’s you I’ll call security on you. Don’t test me tonight. …I leave for five goddamned minutes!” The growl in Ritsu’s voice wasn’t menacing. It was a softer scolding than Soubi remembered from his past. Had Ritsu’s commanding voice changed or had Soubi’s memory altered things?

Ritsu charged forward into the room, far bolder than he should have been with a potential intruder in his room. He knew someone was there, but there was the small doubt in his mind that he was wrong and misheard some sounds upstairs and was blindly yelling at no one.

“It’s me.” Soubi’s voice came out in a hoarse whisper. He cursed himself for knowing that Ritsu would be able to identify his voice instantly. He was surprised the man couldn’t tell it was him just by his presence in the room or something equally disturbing.

“Soubi-kun?” Ritsu immediately reached out to place his hand on Soubi’s cheek. The younger man flinched back and away from the cold hand. ‘Please. Don’t touch me,’ he thought.

“I- yes. It’s me. I came back to visit. I shouldn’t stay long, I just- I have business here.” A lie that he was foolish to tell, of course Ritsu was bound to ask what kind of business Soubi would have here. He was part of the goddamned council he would know if Soubi was needed here. Soubi was nervous. It was not ordinary for him to be so taken aback but he had been away from Ritsu for so long. And with everything around him in this building having stayed just the same, Ritsu was the one thing that seemed to have changed. Was Soubi imagining it or had Ritsu changed quite drastically since his injury? It seemed slight changes in such a regimented man could appear so startling.

Feeling that his anxiety over the situation was foolish to display towards Ritsu Soubi backed away, the distance was a buffer. He tried to collect himself but his mind was racing as his eyes scanned Ritsu. Ritsu was giving him an expression of skepticism. Wrinkles had grown deeper on the man’s face. His hair limper, more silver.

Ritsu sighed, taking in the odd situation. He was filled with joy to hear Soubi’s voice again in the same room as him. But he was still troubled with irritation at the timing, as though teenage Soubi was coming into his rooms late at night with a pouty complaint. “Soubi-kun it’s late. I don’t know what could’ve prompted you to show up like this but why don’t we talk about it in the morning.” Ritsu’s voice rang with the authority of an order.

Soubi didn’t know quite what prompted him to come either. He had nothing pressing to say to Ritsu. Nothing really to say to him at all. He let Ritsu lead him through the door and noticed the man’s touch against the wall and surfaces around him. ‘What a strange thing,’ Soubi thought, following him from behind. Ritsu’s confident posture was wrecked by the small addition of an outstretched hand guiding him along the hall.

“I’m pretty sure this room is free. You really should have told some one you were coming.” Ritsu stopped at one of the rooms in the dormitory, knocked at the door, and fumbled with a key in the lock. “I’ll send someone down with sheets.” Soubi followed Ritsu’s lead as though in a trance.

The room reeked of his past, he hated this, he hated this smell, these walls, this man. Why did he come back after all this time? Most of all, Soubi hated the pull in him that he knew would lead him to come back once again after this visit; for as long as he had the freedom to do so.


End file.
